Tuesday, October 23, 2012

Calif. Teamsters fighting Prop 32


Our brothers and sisters in California have strong feelings about the Billionaires' Bill of Rights, also known as Prop 32.

A nurse named DeAnn McEwen explained why she and her colleagues oppose Prop 32 on the California Labor Fed's website:
...I know how wealth is valued over the health of my patients with today’s recreation of an aristocracy born of speculation and no sense of community values. 
The San Francisco Chronicle today disclosed that corporations outspend unions by at least 3-1 to dominate elections and public policy in California, according to a nonpartisan group called California Common Sense. 
Since 2000, business interests alone have poured an obscene $1.7 billion into California campaigns to sway candidate and initiative campaigns. Imagine a world in which that money might have gone to our schools, or healthcare, or creating jobs, and you get a sense how wildly corrupted our political system has become, aided by disgraceful court rulings that big money equals free speech. 
That substantial current advantage is apparently not enough for the giant corporations, billionaires, and clandestine super political action committees that are funneling tens of millions of dollars into a campaign to pass the deceptive and dishonest Proposition 32 which would effectively end the ability of unions to compete at all in the electoral arena. 
Read the whole thing here.